Sat, Mar 23, 2019 page8

[ LETTER ]

Glorious democracy

Former premier William Lai (賴清德) on Monday registered to run in the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential primary. The survival of Taiwan’s democracy immediately brightened. It solves the problem of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) low popularity. Hopefully, the wisdom of the party primary process would allow both to contribute to the defense of Taiwan’s freedom.

Lai is a diligent Taiwanese independence worker. He does not want Taiwan to be a second Hong Kong or Tibet. He will have Taiwan as an unsinkable carrier of democracy. Taiwan’s freedom is better than that of the US and the healthcare system is the envy of the world.

The Taiwan Strait and the Central Mountain Range are God-sent defense treasures. The hard-earned democracy advocated by the DPP is the best defense against Chinese repression. Moreover, Tsai has already strengthened the armed forces with advanced domestic missiles, airplanes and naval vessels. It has also received the advice of high-ranking US military officials. Taiwan will defeat China before it sets foot on the island. Ukraine’s success in stopping the recent Russian invasion should be a warning to Beijing’s scheme of invading Taiwan.

The losses in last year’s local elections to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) were a blessing in disguise. The KMT is now showing its true anti-democratic nature. It relies on Middle Kingdom chauvinism and on the hijacked Chinese economy to legitimize its existence. Such behavior will not receive the support of the free world.

The governmental system was designed during the rule of the repressive KMT, led by the two Chiangs. It was reinforced by then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to perpetuate the KMT’s quasi-autocracy. The reform of such a well-entrenched and corrupt system by Tsai, a legal academic, has been arduous and painfully slow. Meanwhile, social turmoil created by the raucous protests of KMT and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) infiltrators were unfairly attributed to Tsai as a show of incompetence.

The constant military threats from China and its promises of economic benefits, which is backed by its recent spectacular economic growth, led many Taiwanese to believe that the CCP, with the collaboration of the KMT, might give them a better future.

However, Taiwanese must understand that China’s impressive economic growth over the past three decades is based on socialism with Chinese characteristics (a state-controlled economy). It does not endorse a private-market economy.

The book Why Nations Fail explains convincingly that this centrally controlled economy will fail just like the old Soviet Union. The failure has already been developing for years and has accelerated because of th pressure from the trade war waged by US President Donald Trump’s administration.

Therefore, there will not be any economic benefit from China to Taiwan in the future. Furthermore, both the KMT and the CCP have never honored law and order domestically, even internationally. Hoping for benefits from known lawless criminals is insane.

Lai will galvanize the electorate, which has been disgruntled by Tsai’s slow and overly cautious reforms, and also bring back supporters of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Lai’s popularity now leads any KMT challenger.

US Vice President Mike Pence and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have repeatedly praised Taiwan’s democracy. US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback cooperated with Taiwan and held the Indo-Pacific region dialogue on religious freedom in Taipei on Monday and Tuesday last week to demonstrate the importance of Taiwan against China’s repression of religions. This is another US strategy using Taiwan as a partner to control the Chinese ambition to replace free-world democracy with communist autocracy.

Taiwan is a bright beacon of democracy in Asia and even the entire world. Now, roll up your sleeves and bravely face the repressive autocracies of the KMT and the CCP. Eradicate them! Proclaim to the world that Taiwan is for free Taiwanese! Not Chinese Taipei, for God’s sake!

May God bless Taiwan’s democracy.

Binzu Young, Zuyu Ann, and 12 septuagenarian-octogenarian US alumni of National Taiwan University College of Medicine

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